


Tropes and Cliches

by Carbon65



Series: B's get degrees [6]
Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Do not post on another site, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, and they were ROOMMATES, fandom tropes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 04:45:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20483081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: Housing made a mistake and now she's stuck sharing her summer and her apartment with an aggravating stranger. Katherine misses college, even though she's here. She's not sure she'll make it through the summer with her roommate, though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuppenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/gifts).

> This started as a gift for Tuppenny's PhD. Because she is awesome. It's just umm... late.

It’s a mistake. Housing isn’t supposed to put the two of them together in an apartment. She’d requested a single bedroom in a shared apartment. She’d checked a box, specifying a preference for a female roommate. They’d put her in with Sullivan, Francis J. Francis Sullivan is supposed to be a quiet girl, a studio art major who’s staying over the summer to catch up on a few general education classes and lend a hand with the kids camps. She’s supposed to be the kind of girl who is willing to sit and drink wine with Kath on a friday night while they watch _Stardust_ together. Because Neil Gaiman is a genius and Charlie Cox is gorgeous. And, even though Kath doesn’t think she could ever write fantasy, she appreciates it. 

So, the person in front of her cannot be Sullivan-comma-Francis J. Somewhere behind the scruffy, boy in a baseball cap with a brim so curved it hides his eyes, that’s where Sullivan-comma Francis J. must be. She’ll be… actu ally, Kath doesn’t know what she’ll be. But, this is not Francis.

“Hey there,” Baseball cap says, “Would ya mind helping a fellow out?”

She shrugs, and he pushes a plastic grocery bag of sheets at her.

“Are you Francis’... brother?” She asks, trying to keep _that_ tone out of her voice. She really hopes he’s an estranged brother, if she has to be a brother at all.

“...Francis?” the guy asks. “Who… oh. Shit.” He rubs his hand on his grimy pants. “Jack. Jack Kelly.”

She nods. “So, not Francis’ brother, then. I was looking forward to meeting her.” 

An expression spreads across Jack’s face. Katherine can only describe it as pained. Which… is not a good sign. 

“Yo, Jackie, this your new place?” The voice heralds its owner, who appears to be a pair of glasses, a pile of boxes, shorts, and tevas.

Jack Kelly - who is not Francis Sullivan - drops the trashbag he’s been carrying to the ground beside him, and bumps the small cardboard box from his hip to the kitchen counter. He pulls out a rumpled piece of paper that looks familiar. And a manilla key envelope.

“Yeah,” he says, “that’s what the paperwork says. I’m in 227B.”

He palms the key, leaving his box on the kitchen counter, and walks purposefully to the door of the second bedroom - 227B. She’s in 227D; their stark cinder block rooms furnished with the dorm issued bed, nightstand, desk, bookcase, and single window mirror each other. She dumps the sheets outside his door, and stalks back to her room.

She shuts the door, and lets the lock click into place in a satisfying way. 

She stays there, while it sounds like a small herd of elephants move in and out of the apartment. 

She stays in her room, trying to let _Suits_ drown out the sound of boys laughing and talking and eating pizza.  
She misses pizza.  
She misses her friends.  
And, even though she’s on campus, on a college campus, she misses something intangible that _is_ college. 

It’s only later, after the noise has died down, that she ventures out to use the bathroom and get some cereal.

She can see a light under Jack’s door, but it’s quiet.

She creeps back to her own room, still mad.

* * *

By Sunday evening, Katherine decides she has to leave her room. Her body is demanding some sort of nutrition other than a bag of Hershey’s Minis, the box of rice chex she’d brought back, and two boxes of gluten free cookies she has stashed in there. (The cookies are awesome, okay? Expensive, but worth it. Better than any other gluten free baked good she’s tasted, and better than a lot of cookies with gluten.)

She waits until the sounds of cooking have faded, and the kitchen is likely to be empty. It was quieter tonight. Jack and maybe one other person… or maybe the TV. She’s not sure. She doesn’t care. Not at all.

She slinks into the kitchen, planning to grab some food and run. She goes to the fridge quickly, pulls out her jar of almond butter, and considers what to pair it with. She could just, you know, get a spoon. Or… hmmm. She’s got some baby carrots in the fridge. Carrots go with peanut butter, right? She knows celery does, but she’s never been much of a celery girl. What she _really_ wants is an almond butter sandwich, but she also doesn’t want to pull out the bread from the freezer, toast it, and still have it remind her a bit of cardboard. 

She’s too busy rummaging in the fridge for the carrot sticks that she almost jumps when she hears the voice beside her.

“Hey, Kathy.” 

She looks up. “Katherine.” The word is flat, the look is hard. 

She just wanted to get her food and get out. She does not want to interact with Jack Kelly. Not now.

He scrubs a hand over his face. “We… we gotta talk sometime.”

“No, we don’t. I’m going to the housing office first thing tomorrow.” Kath says, conviction filling her voice like she’d been planning this for a while, rather than the idea just dawning on her. “I’m going to housing, and then you can move out.”

Jack’s brow furrows, his hands clench, but he lets out a breath before demanding, “What makes ya think I’m the one who’ll have to move out?”

Katherine shrugs. “I was here first.”

“Whatever you say, princess,” he sneers, before turning on his heel and heading back to his room.

* * *

Monday morning, they work through a dance around the bathroom. Katherine’s internship starts promptly at nine, and her father had warned her to be early. (Even if its an inferior paper. None of his interns would ever get away with being late. She wonders if her father has ever met one of his interns.) Her mom needs her to send a first day of work picture to Hannah in some sort a… something appropriate. There’s a list of suggestions and designers and maybe she was supposed to pick something out ahead. Kath likes it better when school is in session. If she posts something artsy on instagram every once in a while, it usually passes muster. And, when it doesn’t, she can usually get Rosie or Sarah to go out with her to shoot photos while they make fun of patriarchal standards. When she’s at school, when it’s really School, Katherine has protection. This text feels like one more layer in the no man’s land that is this summer. She doesn’t like it. So, when Katherine’s alarm goes off at 6:15, she rolls over, and turns it off.  
When Katherine’s alarm goes off at 6:25, playing Aqua, she rolls over and hits snooze.  
When Katherine’s alarm goes off at 6:32, reprising Aqua, she turns it off and swears at herself for only setting a seven minute snooze.  
When Katherine’s alarm goes off at 6:55, playing Scrubs, she stumbles out of bed and makes the mad dash into the bathroom in her sleep shorts and thin tank top. <strike>Normally, she sleeps naked.</strike> She likes the idea of sleeping naked, wanted to try it this summer. Fucking housing office. As the door closes, she can hear Jack getting up, and then loud swearing. She ignores it, in favor of showering. She takes her time, too, going all the way through with conditioner to make sure that her hair is smooth and then rinsing with apple cider vinegar because Spot made her watch Queer Eye and JVN was right and that stuff is magic against dandruff. She tries to slip out of the steamy bathroom in her towel, blushing under the realization that the robe she totally doesn’t own is not with her. (She never needed one living with Spot “Shirts are for outside the room, sports bras here” Conlon.) Jack leans against the door frame of his room, glasses perched on his nose and hair tousled from sleep. He follows the Spot Conlon school of shirts as well; she notices that his boxer briefs are dingy white as he heads into the bathroom. She’s glad she has her hair dryer in her room because she’s fully dressed and made up before Jack is out of the bathroom. Or, maybe not, judging from the sprinke of beard trimming by the sink. Which… ewwww. She doesn’t have time for that, though. She grabs her bag, her keys, and her bus pass and heads off to the first day of what should be the start of her successful career. 

* * *

She’s back first, she thinks. It’s hard to tell, but Jack’s stupid baseball cap is no longer sitting on the counter. She’s still hungry, so she fishes some of that microwave curry out of the freezer and shoves it into the microwave. 

She leans against the counter, fanning herself. It’s hot outside, and they haven’t turned on the air conditioning. Or, rather, she turned on the air condition and it looks like Jack went and turned it off. Because Jack Kelly just keeps screwing up her life. First the thing with Francis. And then, the air conditioning. She goes to grab a knife and fork out of the silverware drawer, and realizes it’s empty. She goes to get one from the dishwasher, and then stares. The empty pizza boxes are there.

And… and… She’s got the second day of her internship tomorrow. She’s not going to call in sick, even though it was bad. But, she’s not going to call in sink, not going to let herself get sick, not because her… the guy who is sleeping in the extra bedroom of her apartment until housing comes to their senses and either lets him switch with Bill or Darcy or he finally moves out. She fishes through the drawer until she finds the still sealed package of chopsticks with an elephant holding them together that one of her brothers bought her. It’s incredibly embarrassing to be an adult woman who can’t use chopsticks in this day and age, but the training ones are supposed to help, right?

She gets a glass of water, and then her portfolio, and starts reviewing her notes. She wants to be prepared for tomorrow.

Halfway through a bite of microwave Panang curry, she hears the scraping of the key in the lock. She stares doggedly at the printouts and photocopies laid out in front of her, pointedly ignoring Jack.

As she pretends to read, she hears the cupboard doors open. The tap runs for a bit. There’s filtered water in the fridge, but she doesn’t mention it. The sound of a chair scraping. She stares resolutely at the same sentence she’s been reading for the past ten minutes. They sit in weighty silence, Kath struggling with her chopsticks because even though she’s lived in New York her whole life she still hasn’t gotten the hang of how you take lady-like bites with them. 

“There’s knives and forks, ya know.” Jacks words break the tension like a knife. “You don’t have to spill rice down your front.”

She looks up and glares at him. “You ate pizza and didn’t run the dishwasher.” 

“So, all you gotta do is wash’em, princess.”

She stiffens. This is the first time since they told her she couldn’t have gluten that her roommate doesn’t know and therefore wasn’t automatically keeping a gluten free kitchen. Spot had been there, holding her hand, the whole way through. Spot had been the one who encouraged her to do it. (Spot had claimed ulterior motives, in that they had to share a bathroom. Spot was right, damn it.)

“I umm… look. I keep a gluten free kitchen.”

“That like kosher? My buddy Davey’s Opa keeps a kosher kitchen. He’s got separate plates for his cheese and everything.”

“Yes, no, umm, kinda?” She really doesn’t want to be having this discussion with him! He’s rude and loud and ate pizza (pizza!) and probably used the toaster. She steels herself. “Look, I umm, my roommate during the school year and I just don’t have anything with gluten in our room. She eats out if she wants it, and I just… I don’t.” Mostly. Except, like, that binge at the end of last semester after all her finals were done. And Mushs birthday. And that day after the fight with her father. And, oh God, that hadn’t been worth it. Not at all. 

“Well, I can’t afford to eat out all the time, I gotta cook. So, how do I cook gluten free?”

She studies Jack, and feels her hackles rising and she doesn’t know why. But, she plunges on, anyway. “You umm. Look, no wheat. No white flour, no bread, no real pasta, no bagels, no pizza.”

Jack nods. “Okay, no wheat. Anything else?”

Yes, no. It’s insidious and hidden and she is constantly so careful. And, of course, as soon as there’s a gluten free labels on it, it gets so much more expensive. “You have to check the labels. Like, really check them. Sometimes they hide it.”

“Right, labels.” 

“If you’re gonna cook with it, you need to use different pots and pans. And a different cutting board. And, if you’re going to eat it, you gotta put everything through the dishwasher because it’s the only thing that gets things clean enough. No sharing sponges, if you’ve got one with gluten, it’s yours and it’s separate. 

She stares at him, challenging him, but Jack just nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks,” she says. She blushes. And then, she picks up her curry container, and goes to her room where she melts into a pile because Oh Dear God, what was that?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katherine tries to be an adult

For the next ten days, she and Jack circle each other in a cycle of careful avoidance. Or, she goes out of her way to avoid Jack. She goes out of her way to avoid plenty of people, though, so maybe Jack Kelly shouldn’t count himself _that_ lucky.

She gets up early to avoid him, even though it’s not her nature. Spot is the early riser, awake with the sun, but asleep with it too. It’s hard to get Spot to stay out much past nine, and it’s hard to get Katherine out before nine. Everyone knows this. Kath teases Spot about being an old woman and Spot teases Kath about her coffee habit and together they make a semi-functional adult who gets most things done.

Now, she’s getting up before seven to drag her exhausted self into the bathroom so she can blow out her hair. Her mom keeps sending her texts about how she likes Kath’s hair when it’s straightened. Partially that’s because the cut she got over Spring Break really demands that she spends the time blowing it out - especially her bangs. Her bangs might have been a mistake.

She misses being a teenager and and only occasionally in the public eye. She’s beyond thankful to her mom for that: she worked hard to keep Katherine and her siblings out of the spotlight. Kate had been furious when Katherine had been photographed out with Malia Obama that one time: partially with Katherine for being caught but mostly with the paparazzi who thought that it was appropriate to take pictures of two sixteen year old girls who’d left a fundraiser to talk about dumb teenage things. And, despite all that care that Kate had when they were kids, now it’s time for Katherine to grow up, come out into society (and out of the closet if she so chooses. Wait, are you in the closet, Katherine? Because if you’re gay, you can tell me honey.) And somehow, now, that means two Instagram posts per week and a daily tweet. She’s wanted to be verified on social media for a long time, but she wants to be verified because of the things she’s done and not because of her family.

If she’s running late, she might see a sleepy, bespectacled Jack stumble his way into the bathroom while she pulls her lunch out of the freezer. (There are only so many days you can eat the only prepackaged salad without croutons they sell in the lobby coffee shop. Undressed of course, because they make the dressing with soy sauce, not tamari, and soy sauce isn’t gluten free despite popular belief.) She tries to ignore him, tries to tell herself that this might be over soon, tries to ignore those feelings of fear and discomfort about having a strange man in her apartment. She doesn’t know why a strange man is so much more frightening than a strange woman, but somehow, it is. She’s spent her whole life being warned to have her guard up around men, and now… now she just doesn’t know.

She takes the bus in. She doesn’t have her license and the agreement with her dad doesn’t let her have a driver, so… the bus. She’s never going to admit how glad she was that Spot agreed to room with her their first year. Especially because of how patient Spot was when she taught her to ride the bus. The whole tap vs show thing confused her for a bit, and if people want to judge her for that, they can just shut up. She only got trapped outside a subway station once by failing to tap out. And, in her defense, she’d never seen the tap out system before. At least it’s a good 40 minutes to catch up on social media. 

She starts with Twitter, first. Mostly because it’s a quick way to catch up on news. Which she needs, given that she’s trying to be a journalist. Even though she’s currently working in the Arts and Leisure Section of a biweekly bedroom community paper for a municipality where everyone reads the _New York Times_ and _Wall Street Journal_ and _The World_ anyway. It’s not what she wants to be doing long term, but her father doesn’t own the _Sun_ and so even though it’s an entertainment beat and even though it’s small time, it’s better than the alternatives. That’s what she needs to keep telling herself as she reads Twitter and sees her friends at their internships and wonders again why she gave up the chance to work at the international news desk at _The World_. 

She spends enough time on Twitter to determine what “the world on fire” means this week, picks a few articles and sends those to her “news” email account so she can have them when she wants to go back, and then switches over to Instagram with a sigh. Her brother, Herbie, and her sister, Edith, are Influencers, and so part of her daily responsibility is to like their posts. There’s also dealing with the comments on hers. And checking what might fall into society and culture.  
It’s mostly a depressingly dishonest stack of ads for a life she suspects is fake, but she still desperately wants.

Work is… there’s something exciting about being there in a real office and doing real office-y things. She reads a lot of badly written press releases about high school concerts and community-center plays and the choir at the convent who is putting on their annual concert to raise money for needy children in Bangladesh. She sorts the information into piles to hand off to various reporters (all two of them) or the shredder, according to her editor’s instructions. In the afternoons, she works with layout or copy editing or wherever they send her, because on the one hand it teachers her valuable skills and on the other hand, no one actually enjoys copy editing. 

The bus ride back is much like the bus ride to work: long and crowded. She’s sure it will get hot, too, once they hit June. Maybe less crowded, though, as people leave for summer vacation. It’s not Memorial Day, yet, but the semester has weird timing and the paper has been <strike>desperate</strike> kind enough to let her start early. Ther afternoon ride back is when she deals with the string of texts trying to remind that just because she started work early is no reason to miss the Pulitzer Family Memorial Day Party. No less than her mother; Hannah, her mother’s secretary; Herbie; Edith; and Edith’s six pound dog send messages to remind her. She has to admit, the picture of Edith’s dog dressed up in a bikini is weirdly cute.  
She tries to hold fast because that’s what it means to be a grown up, right? That she needs to do this on her own.

She thinks Jack comes home first, but she’s not sure. When she gets back at six, she sees his baseball cap and hears muffled music. One night, she swears it’s Mariachi, but it might be bluegrass? And yes, she’s aware they’re very different genres. 

She tries to be quick in the kitchen. She’s a microwave cook. Her mom was never much of an anything in the kitchen: she had a private chef growing up and didn’t see a reason to manage her home any differently. After all, she’s a Davis of the Virginia Davises. (Katherine has brought up how pretentious this sounds, especially when her mom wanted her to have a cotillion and come out in society. Baby bisexual Kath had blurred out that she wasn’t ready to come out to anyone, leaving both more and daughter staring at each other in horror, until her father came in, demanded to know what was happening, and informed Katherine that she needs to make her mother happy.) So, most nights, she eats takeout or nukes something or has cereal. She’s very good at making cereal.

She goes to work out after dinner, because if she doesn’t, she will hear about how she’s failing someone somewhere. She hates the treadmill. When school is in session, she and Spot go play intramural ultimate frisbee once a week because Spot can throw a frisbee and intramural inner tube water polo (because it’s ridiculous) and she goes to a barre class. Now… it’s just her and the treadmill and Mary Robinette Kowal. 

She showers again, quick, before bed. Jack’s music is different, and the light under his door is softer when she gets back. She tries to write, tries to read, tries to cross stitch… just ends up falling asleep.   
She doesn’t know when Jack goes to bed.

* * *

The bright Spot in her week is a Wednesday night phone call. Kath is wearing her pajama bottoms and a massive t-shirt she thinks she accidentally stole from Spot who probably either got it for free at an event or stole it from the laundry room and making instant rice noodles. She almost doesn’t answer her ringing phone, but its Spot, and…

“Nice shirt.” Spot doesn’t have much room to talk, she’s wearing a polyester fast food button down.

Katherine glances down at her chest and the billowing “World’s Second Greatest Grandpa” with its Norman Rockwell-esque picture of an old man in a John Deere baseball cap with a dog. “It’s great, isn’t it? ...And I thought you were working at summer camp?”

“Camp starts in three weeks, so I thought I’d pick up some shifts here,” Spot tries to sound blasé about the whole thing. 

Katherine knows that Spot is putting herself through college, that if she makes it next year (and she’ll make it), she’ll be the first in her family to graduate. Not the first to attempt, but she’s already the first to make it past the first three weeks. But, putting herself through college means Spot is always finding some way to make money. And that she’s probably eaten nothing but cheese sandwiches for the past week. Kath had never even heard of government cheese before she met Spot, and she’s still not sure what to do about it now she does. 

“How’s your new job?” Spot demands, and then blows her hair out of her face.

“Uhh… okay?” Katherine isn’t sure what else to say. “Bryan said that if I do well fielding the press releases he might let me go review a show or something in a couple of weeks.”

“That’s good,” Spot nods. “That’ll be real good, right?”

Katherine shrugs, she can’t bring herself to say the words. Spot is kind enough not to point out when so many other people would have. She’s kind enough not to say the words Kath keeps saying to herself. Which is why Spot is Katherine’s best friend.

Instead of dwelling of sore topics, she starts telling Katherine about camp and her plans and Skittery, who she’s staying with… and just, life.

“Oh wait, one more thing!” Spot has been yawning for the past ten minutes, and when Katherine checks her watch, it is approaching well after Spot’s normal bedtime. Early birds are freaks of nature, and both Kath and Spot has accepted that this is her reality. “Your mom invited me to the memorial day party, before I leave. You’re coming, right?”

Katherine nods, tentatively. Her mom plays dirty pool. But, it won’t hurt to go, right? She’ll just book a return ticket. She checks her bank account, and yeah, she can do this.

“I’ll see you there,” she promises. “I can’t wait.”

The fearsome Spot Conlon makes a sound that’s mostly inaudible to human ears because she’s excited.

* * *

And then on Friday, the day before she leaves, she’s almost surprised when she sees the white paper on her door. And, okay, some of that may be because she’s on the phone with her mom, who is berating her again to send Hannah the stuff for her instagram. Katherine doesn’t understand why Kate calls the Kardashian-Jenners trashy in one breath, and then begs her daughter to be like them in the next. Or at least to play a socialite on social media. Katherine has a verified Twitter and a verified Insta, both of which are co-run with Hannah, her mom’s social media coordinator; a parody Twitter, a private Insta and a tumblr. The Parody account has the most followers by far, which is funny because it’s mostly her being honest. It also makes her father crazy.

“Yes, mom, I’ll send Hannah a picture,” she promises. “I umm… Mom, look, the housing office left a note.” 

This changes her mother’s course, and Katherine nods along to Kate’s rant about the University Housing office and how it should be more accommodating of her needs and if she needs it, she could just come home. Wouldn’t it be better if she came home? And, Katherine bites her tongue and the letter from the housing office and makes sounds that are hopefully both comforting and firm on the fact that she plans to stay on campus this summer. If she moves back home that shit with her dad comes up. And, she’d rather not.

She drops her keys on the counter, and leans against the counter to read the letter. It’s mostly formal language, but she gets the gist. It’s a busy summer, and they don’t have any other apartments to put Jack, but if she’d like to move, she’s welcome to take a room in Courant Hall.

She refolds the letter and places it carefully onto the counter next to her keys. Her bag lands on one of the barstools and she drops into the one next to it. “Yes, mom, I’ll call you back and let you know what it says,” she promises. The phone lands on the countertop beside the keys, and her head follows. She lets it bounce once. 

She… oh God… she… she… 

Nothing is the way she expected. Nothing. She thought this summer would be… her’s. The school year is mostly hers, and she thought that by staying on campus, she’d get to keep doing that. She thought the summer internship would be fun. And… she doesn’t know? She just doesn’t. She doesn’t know how to ask the person she’s supposed to be working with for… anything? And, and, and…  
And, oh God, it was a mistake to do this. An absolute mistake. She should have just gone home… she should just go home like her mom wants. It’s not too late, they haven’t paid her yet (even though they’re supposed to), and it’s not real until money changes hands, right? She can cancel her room here with one week notice, it’s not too late… she could call her mom back and call housing and…

“Kathy, you okay?”

She waves the crumpled paper that’s somehow in her hand in the direction of the voice. She’s fine. Just fine.

“Kathy, ya sure?”

“My name is Katherine,” she says back a little bit too hotly. And then, she gathers up her things and stalks to her bedroom with all the dignity she can manage.  
Its only when she gets to her room that she realizes she has a streak of blue chalk across her cheek. Which, she has no clue how that got there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying to have this for Newsiestober, and... nope. But, better late than pregnant, right? 
> 
> Questions, comments, concerns, recommendations, and directions for adulting all welcome.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, no, I dont know. I have a very clear trajectory for this story, which is good? 
> 
> Questions, comments, concerns, suggestions about what to do now that I've lost a good 12m2 of floor space in my room all welcome?


End file.
